Tech Question

[Greenday]

I never thought I'd have to ask a tech question but the time has come I must ask for advice.

I just got to college today and everything is finally set up. I got on my laptop, aim is working msn messenger is working. Then I tried to get into CS chat. It wouldn't let me connect. I never put up a firewall that would keep my computer from running chats. Any ideas on this one? I had to download and run some program from my school to make sure my laptop is safe to run on the internet. Could that be preventing it?

I've also noticed I now can't search on Limewire. The only results I get are ethernet connections. Why am I getting the feeling that that stupid file I had to download to use the internet is preventing me from doing this stuff?

[Rapscallion]

Many networks block certain ports. IRC is sometimes used by spambots - if a computer is controlled by someone else, they likely feed it commands through an IRC channel. Limewire - downloading from that could be opening them to legal problems. Ask your network admin, I guess.

Rapscallion

[Fashion Lad!]

A lot of colleges won't you download music on their campus because of the lawsuits the RIAA is throwing at people and colleges.

Oh my, you might have to buy your music. :P

[Greenday]

A lot of colleges won't you download music on their campus because of the lawsuits the RIAA is throwing at people and colleges.

Oh my, you might have to buy your music. :P

Yea, I understand the limewire problem. Doesn't really bother me. I brough cds with me just in case.

But as for the chat problem, kinda pisses me off. I wanna talk to all you fun people :lol: .

[Ryu]

its probably what raps said
most if not all colleges block those types of connections
i doubt its due to the file, rather due to the network settings

[Gopher]

If your connecting via the college's network, there is a very strong possibilty that their firewall is blocking the ports needed by whatever chat program you are using.

Which chat program are you using, is it an obscure one? Because AIM and Messenger are so widespread that your college would most likely have their ports open as they know what they are being used for.

To be honest if this is case I don't know whether it can be solved and if you were to try it would involve a trip to see the IT bods on your campus, so I don't know whether it is worth the effort!?!

Is the old Java based chat thingy still working??

[Greenday]

Well, that's what I use for the CS chatroom and the other chatroom, they are both java. I don't know, I'm too freaking tired to do anything about it.

[Ryu]

irc uses a port that i dont think anything else uses so if they didnt see any reason to allow it they would just block it so it couldnt be exploited or used for filesharing or anything
I believe you can change the port irc is connected to with but you might need to use mirc to do so, dont take my thought as concrete though

[LostMyMind]

Well, look up proxy servers if the university is censoring. The whole "blocking" ports thing is silly, if you open one port then anything can be used.

I have no need for proxy servers, so I wouldn't know if there are any "free" proxy servers around.

[Great Unknown]

If you have a good desktop home connection that's always running, you can just setup a proxy to it for the blocked apps. This still may not work for some applications, some chat and FTP stuff especially (the passive and active modes confuse me anyway).

[Gopher]

Well, that's what I use for the CS chatroom and the other chatroom, they are both java. I don't know, I'm too freaking tired to do anything about it.

Its not a Java issue is it?

I have a feeling this "security" software your college has had you run has probably disabled Java for some or all of your applications.

In firefox it is a pretty simple thing to sort out, Options> Web features and there are then two tick boxes for enable Java and enable Java scripts - all rather self explantory

In IE it is probably tucked away in the advanced settings tab or the advanced options menu of the security tab.

It would probably also explain why Limewire is not working as it should do because I believe that is Java based, but not 100% certain.

Maybe try downloading the Java Run Time Environment again to see if that helps?

http://java.com/en/

[Greenday]

W00T! Limewire is up! I can download music. Must download all I can while the firewall is down!

[Ryu]

lucky
for whatever reason i cant even get itunes to download stuff in under an hour if it works at all